Why Routine?

If our def­i­n­i­tion of vaca­tion is sig­nif­i­cant, as in greater than 5 days, time away from our home, then my fam­i­ly has been on vaca­tion a total of two times.  The first vaca­tion was 8 days in a sin­gle cab­in in Mary­land, and the sec­ond vaca­tion was 13 days vis­it­ing friends and fam­i­ly in Maine. These vaca­tions were dif­fer­ent from one anoth­er, how­ev­er, there’s one very impor­tant val­ue they both share: They both launched my fam­i­ly into a peri­od with no routine.

Nor­mal­ly, our days mod­el the 80–20, that is, we plan for 80% of the day, and leave a 20% buffer. Our 80% plan con­tains a rou­tine of our school tasks, chores, errands, group activ­i­ties, and oth­er respon­si­bil­i­ties in the day.  When we are on vaca­tion, how­ev­er, our plan is flipped into 20–80. If this were a clever movie, I might call it turn­ing tur­tle. This gives us a chance to expe­ri­ence life a lit­tle more free than nor­mal.  It also gets old quick. 

Even when we were sur­round­ed by friends, fam­i­ly, and the beau­ti­ful Maine scenery, my fam­i­ly still fin­ished our vaca­tion ready to return home. This response to our vaca­tion puz­zled me as I know that each and every one of my fam­i­ly mem­bers felt more “at home” in Maine than they do, well, at home.  What was caus­ing them to expe­ri­ence home-sickness? 

Cre­at­ing struc­ture with a rou­tine is nev­er so obvi­ous­ly impor­tant as when you spend mul­ti­ple days with­out it. By the end of every vaca­tion, my fam­i­ly is ready for the rou­tine.  When we start a new school year, we are ready to get into the dai­ly rou­tine, eager for it even. This rou­tine gives us focus, but it also gives us free­dom.  It’s like those old psy­chol­o­gy stud­ies about kids on a play­ground and the fence.  When the fence was installed the chil­dren felt more safe and played on more of the play­ground than when the fence was missing. 

Rou­tine is the fence. It is the invis­i­ble bound­ary on our lives. As such, it cre­ates free­dom to think, free­dom to play, and free­dom to work. With­out rou­tine it is easy to become like the dou­ble mind­ed man ref­er­enced in James: Tossed to and fro by the waves. 

How’s your rou­tine for this new year shap­ing up? Are you inter­est­ed in cre­at­ing new bet­ter rou­tines for 2020? Come join our con­ver­sa­tions about rou­tines on the Scio Acad­e­my face­book page.